The award was presented at a special session at the HFES 2017 International Annual Meeting on Tuesday, October 10. During the award session, members of the winning teams discussed their design methodologies and the successes and challenges encountered in developing the devices.

Alinity ci-series Diagnostic Systems is an integrated clinical chemistry and immunoassay system for hospital and independent labs that detects the presence of different chemicals in the blood and includes tests such as sodium, potassium, glucose, and calcium. Immunoassay methods use antibody or antigen recognition to detect complex molecules and provide information related to infectious diseases, hormone levels, cardiac risk factors, cancer, thyroid issues, and therapeutic drugs. The system was designed over a period of eight years by a team of more than one hundred people led by human factors engineer Ila Elson and human factors and design validation team members Tony Bonilla, Raj Patel, and Elvira Weis.

Award cochair Stan Caplan commented, “This is a complex product, and I like the way they took a systems approach to the interaction design rather than looking separately at the components.”

The Centrella™ Smart+ bed is a medical-surgical bed featuring a number of innovations to optimize patient safety, enhance patient satisfaction, and advance caregiver-focused technology. These include an intelligent night light to help patients navigate a dark room, a frame design that limits patient migration toward the foot of the bed, and a powered air surface that adjusts to patient comfort preferences while reducing risk of developing pressure injuries. The product includes a comprehensive Graphical Caregiver Interface™ touchscreen, which simplifies executing complex bed commands for caregivers and provides them with detailed patient information. Centrella™ Smart+ bed also offers an overhead arm to mount patients’ electronic devices for easy viewing, and a platform that will accommodate future innovations related to patient safety monitoring.

These features were borne of an extensive contextual inquiry process led by industrial designers Nick Mann, Rick Heimbrock, and Mark Zerhusen. Engineering team leads were Brian Hoffman, Mike Knecht, Travis Pelo, Katy Smith, and Rick Schuman; they were supported by human factors/ergonomics research scientist Neal Wiggermann.

Summarizing the judges’ findings, Caplan noted, “They did a great job of identifying and addressing the many types of interactions that caregivers and patients of all sizes could have with the bed.”

Submissions were judged on six criteria, including functional obviousness, ease of operation, creativity/innovation, concept development, design, and evaluation.

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society is the world’s largest scientific association for human factors/ergonomics professionals, with more than 4,500 members globally. HFES members include psychologists and other scientists, designers, and engineers, all of whom have a common interest in designing systems and equipment to be safe and effective for the people who operate and maintain them. “Human Factors and Ergonomics: People-Friendly Design Through Science and Engineering.”